Lucked Out By God, But Nazis Don’t Look Back!

by Gerard Sarnat

Shirley Shirley bo burley
Banana fana fo firley…
–Shirley Ellis, The Name Game

Ta-da
JewBu
Beatniks

Hippie dippy
Yippie preppy
Yuppie Swifties

Bowling alley blues
Particularly crunchy one
Too many piggies oy vey on teat

Bracing severity raced its mortal coil
D/ anger armed with a catholic armoire
Of trans-fatty unsubstantiated banana bread

Nothing too trivial for Cold War Stasi scrutiny.


Gerard Sarnat

Poet, aphorist, humorist or sometimes meanderist; Gerard Sarnat’s a multiple Pushcart/Best of Net Award nominee. His work’s been widely published; including four collections; by Israel Association of Writers in English, The Nature of Our Times/Poets For Science, Brooklyn Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Gargoyle, New Delta Review, Buddhist Review, New York Times, Oberlin, Northwestern, Yale, Pomona, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Brown, North Dakota, McMaster, Maine, British Columbia/Toronto/Chicago and Virginia university presses. He’s a Harvard Medical School-trained physician, Stanford professor, healthcare CEO. Currently, he’s devoting energy and resources to dealing with climate justice, serving on Climate Action Now’s board. Sarnat’s belonged to the longest-running U.S. Jewish-Palestinian dialogue group. Gerry’s been married since 1969 and has three kids, six grandsons — and looks forward to future granddaughters. gerardsarnat.com